Ohio voters approve 69% of school levies

Wednesday

May 7, 2014 at 12:01 AMMay 8, 2014 at 10:58 AM

Ohio voters approved 69 percent of the school levies on Tuesday's ballots, the second-highest approval rate in a primary election in the past decade. Statewide, 102 of the 148 school taxes passed, including both Franklin County levies - one for Canal Winchester and another for Groveport Madison schools.

Catherine Candisky, The Columbus Dispatch

Ohio voters approved 69 percent of the school levies on Tuesday’s ballots, the second-highest approval rate in a primary election in the past decade.

Statewide, 102 of the 148 school taxes passed, including both Franklin County levies — one for Canal Winchester and another for Groveport Madison schools.

Forty-six levies were defeated, according to election results compiled by the Ohio School Boards Association.

Election Results: Primary 2014

Once again, levies seeking to renew existing taxes fared far better at the polls than those for new or additional funds. Voters approved 90 percent of the renewal taxes, but not quite 41 percent of new ones.

“It is still an uphill battle to secure voter approval for new or additional money requests,” said Damon Asbury, director of legislative services for the Ohio School Boards Association. “But districts are most likely to be supported when asking for existing levies to be renewed or replaced.”

Groveport Madison schools bucked that trend in passing a new tax with 53 percent of the vote. The 6.68-mill levy will generate $33.3 million a year, financing a new high school, transportation for high-school students and athletic programs without fees.

In Canal Winchester, a renewal, or substitute, levy to raise $5.8 million a year for operations won easily with 57 percent of the vote.

Educators say that schools, faced with declining revenue and a difficult economy, are forced to turn more and more to their local communities for support. Most of the districts that were turned down by voters will be forced to make a new round of spending cuts.

Other districts are hoping for better results on the November ballot, including Springfield Local in Mahoning County, where voters on Tuesday rejected a 1 percent income-tax renewal in place since 1992.

“We think the impact was very, very low turnout. In the presidential election, there were 4,400 ballots cast and in this election there were 1,447 cast, so it was very, very low turnout,” said Superintendent Debra Mettee.

The current levy, which generates $2 million a year for the district, doesn’t expire until Dec. 31, so spending cuts can still be avoided.

Statewide, the highest passage rate in a primary election was two years ago when voters approved 73 percent of the education taxes. Schools suffered their biggest defeat in 2008, when only 45 percent passed. The statewide average passing rate over the past decade is 60 percent.

In other levy results, six of eight county developmental-disabilities levies passed, including one in Morrow County where voters hadn’t approved a levy of that kind in nearly a decade. The Morrow County win followed 14 consecutive failures at the polls, going back to 2006. Before that, levies were rejected 10 other times.

Also on Tuesday, voters approved nine of the 10 tax requests for libraries across Ohio. No central Ohio libraries were on the ballot.